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Computer Science > Databases

Title:
Kleisli Database Instances

Abstract: We use monads to relax the atomicity requirement for data in a database.
Depending on the choice of monad, the database fields may contain generalized
values such as lists or sets of values, or they may contain exceptions such as
various types of nulls. The return operation for monads ensures that any
ordinary database instance will count as one of these generalized instances,
and the bind operation ensures that generalized values behave well under joins
of foreign key sequences. Different monads allow for vastly different types of
information to be stored in the database. For example, we show that classical
concepts like Markov chains, graphs, and finite state automata are each
perfectly captured by a different monad on the same schema.